for people who care about the West

Sometimes, it takes a tourist

One day early in the summer,
my husband, Mike, and I were working on our place, a few irrigated
acres carved from Wyoming's high desert. Tree limbs lay scattered
from a recent tree trimming, manure was heaped in the corral. The
last thing we needed was a telephone call from a stranger.

He spoke with a thick German accent. "I found your name
in the Oregon-California Trails Association directory," he said. "I
am looking for the true Parting of the Ways, not the one where the
highway marker is. I know I'm close; can you help me?"

I
thought of all we had to do and fumbled with an excuse. "But, I
have come all the way from Germany," he said. "I will be so
disappointed…" So we said yes, or my husband did, saying
he’d meet the traveler on Highway 28, at the sign for Bridger
Wilderness, Big Sandy Openings.

But there was no question
of my going. I knew I had too much to do to drive around, looking
for wagon ruts and the precise spot where The Parting of The Ways
happened. It’s the place where, halfway into their 2,000-mile
journey, emigrants faced a choice: They could take the Sublette
cutoff, saving 46 miles but then traveling 50 miles through the
waterless desert, or they could keep to the longer main trail
through Fort Bridger.

Emigrants who had been inseparable
for the first half of the journey said goodbye here, not knowing if
they’d ever see each other again. Wagon ruts and an
occasional manmade marker identify the Oregon Trail as it snakes
through Wyoming sagebrush, climbs gentle South Pass, and continues
into Idaho or Utah.

During the Oregon Trail
Sesquicentennial, wagon trains re-enacting the journey lumbered
past our house. They reminded me that one reason I love living here
— despite the harsh climate — is the land's history.
When I look out at the Wind River Mountains, I think about those
pioneers, moving on with courage, and often, desperation.

I realized that my
husband had chosen the better way to spend the afternoon. I’d
denied myself the chance to rediscover the landscape I love, made
fresh by a European’s determination.

Although the
visitor, Hermann, wasn't very talkative, my husband learned that he
was from a little town about 50 miles from Stuttgart and that he
was a longtime member of the Oregon Trails California-Oregon
Association. This wasn't his first trip West; once, he followed the
trail all the way from its starting point in Missouri. Since his
wife doesn't like long trips (or perhaps doesn’t share his
obsession), he comes alone. As Mike drove around on dirt tracks,
Hermann fidgeted, worried they were lost. But when they spotted
some markers for the Oregon Trail, he cheered up.

Hermann
didn’t say so, but I bet he became fascinated with the
American West in part through the 19th century novels of Karl May,
a German who wrote some 60 novels about the region before ever
setting foot on American soil. May's romantic adventures inspired a
yearning for the West among German readers that continues today.
There is a yearly festival in his hometown, a museum is dedicated
to his work, and brisk sales continue today of his westerns, one of
which features Winnetou, a noble Apache chief whose heroic German
friend is called Old Shatterhand.

My husband said when
they finally found the Parting of the Ways, Hermann became very
quiet, taking it all in. He commented on the beauty and the silence
of the immense landscape and how different it was from crowded
Germany. He wanted his picture taken by the marker, then took
Mike's, too. He said he felt a sense of freedom here. Then he
walked off by himself to where the trails actually parted and stood
for a long time staring into the distance.

A week later,
a postcard from Hermann arrived thanking us and concluding "God
bless you and America." It made me think. Sometimes it takes a
tourist to remind us Westerners that while the wide open spaces of
the West today aren’t the romantic settings imagined by Karl
May, and they’re no longer the wild lands seen by the
pioneers, they are still our sacred ground.

Marcia Hensley is a contributor to Writers on the Range,
a service of High Country News (hcn.org). She
lives near Farson, Wyoming, on land homesteaded in 1909.
Occasionally, she wishes the nearest grocery wasn’t 50 miles
away.